Sorry, Doctor Faustus closed on 25 Jun 2016

A heady combination of old and new

Critic Rating

20 April 2016, Duke of York's Theatre

Guest Reviewer

As fans of Game of Thrones anxiously wait to discover if Jon Snow is alive or dead, the actor who plays him – Kit Harington – is certainly alive and kicking, playing the title role in this new version of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus at the Duke of York’s Theatre. Part of the Jamie Lloyd Company’s avowed aim to reinvent the classic in an innovative and anarchic manner, this production goes so far as to remove the central acts, whose authorship is doubted, and replace them with new scenes written by Colin Teevan.

The result is a strikingly modern update that sees Faustus as a bedsit-dwelling nobody, who does a deal with the devil in exchange for the gift of black magic and more importantly, the celebrity that comes along with it. With the gleeful Mephistopheles at his side fulfilling his desires, Faustus becomes the man of the moment, a David Copperfield-like magician who uses his new-found skills to hob-nob with the rich and famous, even entertaining Barack Obama on his birthday by bringing Abraham Lincoln and Marilyn Monroe back to life.

It’s a heady combination of old and new that is certain to put the cat among the pigeons of Marlowe fanciers. But the point is that selling your soul doesn’t come cheap, whether the story has been written 400 years or 400 seconds ago, and director Jamie Lloyd shows us a descent into hell fit for any time. In the swirling blocks of Soutra Gilmour’s design and the stylised movement of Polly Bennett’s choreography for the undead ensemble who stalk Faustus’ every move, his moral decline is never in doubt but it is still shocking when the denouement comes.

In presenting a modern vacuous celebrity at the heart of a modern vacuous celebrity-obsessed world, the show does sometimes run the risk of being, well, modern and vacuous. It never looks less than marvellously slick, and fans of Harington will be pleased to note he spent a large proportion of the second act in his boxer shorts, but this version of play rarely engages emotionally. Despite a strong performance, Jade Anouka’s Wagner – Faustus’ putative love interest – isn’t given enough room to make the connections that might have really twanged the heartstrings.

There’s fun to be had with Jenna Russell’s malevolently playful Mephistopheles, Lucifer’s servant, helping Faustus to dig himself an even deeper, though her best moment comes in proving that the devil does indeed have the best tunes, with a post-interval medley that ranges from Kylie to Meatloaf. In the midst of it all, Harington is a game stage presence but rarely a truly compelling one. But in the kind of crazy world where the mysteries of life are held in a Mary Berry cookbook, it almost doesn’t matter. Strangely enjoyable.

Reviewed by Ian Foster.

Paul Taylor

The production is infernally busy, but there are fine things. Tom Edden goes into a brilliant seizure of shape-shifting as he impersonates the Seven Deadly sins.

Andrzej Lukowski

‘Game of Thrones’ heartthrob Kit Harington provides a big name draw for this outlandish new take on Christopher Marlowe’s classic play about a man who flogs his soul to the devil in exchange for awesome powers.

Dominic Cavendish

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with this sort of star-driven “event” theatre (how neatly apt too that the actor was named after “Kit” Marlowe by his folks). But alas there’s little that’s intrinsically right about Jamie Lloyd’s revival.

Natasha Tripney

This is the Jamie Lloyd Company’s first foray beyond the Trafalgar Studios and it feels slightly cruder than his work there. But while his West End productions might not be transcendent, they are incredibly savvy and never, ever dull.